IMF Should Police National Financial Regulators: E.U. Summit

The International Monetary Fund should act as a global, international policing body for national financial regulators, it was proposed today at a meeting of 27 European Union nations.

In addition to the IMF having jurisdiction over national regulators, such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), it would closely supervise the world's 30 biggest companies, according to reports by the BBC.

The proposal came from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has been praised for instigating what became a trans-Atlantic government part-privatization of banks that seems to have calmed world stock markets.

The Prime Minister has emphasized the need for "phase two" measures, following the phase one financial bailout of banks by U.S. and E.U. governments. He called on the IMF to be "rebuilt" and with "more supervision".

International regulation was not the planned agenda of today's meeting in Brussels; rather it was about how all 27 E.U. countries might take market corrective actions such as those made in recent days by the 15 E.U. countries that have the euro as their currency.